


The Making of a Murderer

by TheGirlOfIronAndBlood



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, BAMF!John, Detective Work, M/M, Sherlock is a fucking idiot, idk what to tag whoops, people die i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 03:06:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10913040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGirlOfIronAndBlood/pseuds/TheGirlOfIronAndBlood
Summary: Serial Killer(noun)The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines serial killing as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone".Sherlock has finished off the last of Moriarty's empire, and yet he is afraid to return to London, to return to the light and where home is. But a phonecall from Mycroft and a dire situation is all it takes for him to go running back into the world of crime and mystery alone.Baker Street. Come at once if convenient, if inconvenient, come anyways.





	The Making of a Murderer

>   
>  Murderer  
>  (noun)  
>  A person who commits murder
> 
> Murder  
>  (noun)  
>  the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.  
>  (verb)  
>  kill (someone) unlawfully and with premeditation.
> 
> Serial Killer  
>  (noun)  
>  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines serial killing as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone".  
> 

#  The Making of a Murderer 

## (in which love is selfish and blind) 

(Inspired by an ask from the tumblr of doctorwhoatson)

_July 2013_  
“Doctor Watson? Are you home?” He’s always home nowadays, he nevers really leaves his flat. Mrs Hudson buys the groceries and leaves them in the fridge. John from three years ago would never have guessed that one day, he’d miss the presence of severed body parts in his refrigerator. Nor would he have imagined that he’d meet someone even more intense than the war, who’d leave again after a year, nearly two of unphantomable adventures, leaving the veteran lost and grieving for the second time in his life. 

“Doctor Watson?” Someone bangs the door outside. Its quick, impatient, and the voice reminds him painfully of what he’d lost. 

“Come in,” he shouts, voice cracking. He hasn’t said more than a few words in the past month- the voices in his head are loud enough to make up for the pointless babble that comes out of the mouths of most. “I’m sorry for your loss”, “How are you doing?”, who do they think he is, a grieving lover?

“He was more than a friend to you, less than a lover but more than a friend. Friends don’t waste years of their life grieving in a rotting apartment.” His brain unhelpfully reminds. The door slams shut, shaking John out of his inner dialogue.

He nods to the man at the doorway. “Anderson.” It’s a statement. He clearly remembers who this man is- the man who played a crucial, abeit small part in the death of his detective. 

“You look… well,” Anderson stammers. “I know fully well that I look like shit, now say what you want to say then get the fuck out of my house.” John’s used to blunt comments by now, having spent nearly two years being on the receiving end of unforgiving opinions on his intellect. 

“I think… no, I know that Sherlock,” John whinces, “is alive.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Anderson. I saw him jump, I saw his with his head bashed in on the concrete pavement- he didn’t have a pulse. Molly examined him in the morgue. He’s definitely dead. I know that you feel guilty, but don’t try to console youself. He’s dead, has been dead for nearly two years, 6 feet under the ground and all.”

“But then how do you explain this?” Anderson opens up a map, spreading it on the dusty coffee table. He points to Tibet. “A drug smuggler was caught during a Buddhist ceremony. 

"I think I read about it somewhere- infamous American drug smuggler caught in Tibet. But she's got golden hair, it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure that one out."

"The ceremonies require the monks to wear brown robes with hoods that cover their heads in a candlelit room, I doubt anyone but Sherlock Holmes could be able to solve the case," 

"Maybe the person got lucky," John shrugged. "If that's all you got, then good day, no point in getting your hopes up with little threads like these."

"There's another case- in New Delhi." Anderson takes out his phone and opens the photo album. He's using an iphone 4- a model that's been out for about three years, the screen's cracked but he hasn't replaced it, he's unshaven and his sweater has the same spaghetti stains from three days ago, and a day ago. His hands have ink on them and smell of instant coffee. 

"You've quit your job," John noted bemusedly. "Greg told you?" Anderson grunted, still scrolling through his camera roll. "Yeah." 

"Oh here it is," Anderson shoved the phone under John's nose. A man was sat at a table, being interviewed by a crowd of reporters. "How did you find the killer?" A brunette in the front row asked. "By calculating the distance the chocolate flake had sunk into the victim's ice-cream cone. Excuse me," the inspector then left the room, and the video stopped. 

 

“Does that sound familiar to you?” “The Abernetty family case, yes, parsley in butter on a hot day, right?” “Have you ever heard any case in the world quite like it?” “No, but then there’s the intelligence agencies which probably have people of that caliber,” “They’re called secret agents for reasons, Doctor Watson, they don’t just parade around solving murders,” “Maybe this one's gone rogue” “There’s not a lot of people who would solve such a complicated murder and not ask for credit you know,” “Sherlock asks for credit,” “Yeah, the first time he did was the Reinbach case. There were millions of cases before that where Lestrade just phoned him to come along, he solves the case and tells Lestrade to take the credit. He does it for the kicks, you know that,” 

“Maybe there’s more than one sociopath in the world that can solve crimes then,” “Not a lot of genius sociopaths who would be in Tibet, and from the last case and the one I’m going to tell you about in a second, en route to good ol’ England.”

“Tell me about the next case.” John says, allowing himself a little bit of hope in Anderson’s theory. He’s be able to stomach the devastation, he’s gone through the war and his discharge and Sherlock’s death and Mary’s disappearance. He's nolonger the bright-eyed boy from his teenage years.

Anderson launches into a story about a German court case, producing newspaper clipping from his bag- a murder case solved by a man in the jury. There were o pictures of the mystery man from the front, but there was one of him standing up, facing the judge. A man, thin but well built, tall but not gigantic, in a navy coat and dark curls.

“It looks like Sherlock, doesn’t it?” Anderson seems to have forgotten that he knows that image by heart. They mock him and say he trails after Holmes like a trained puppy, yet they conveniently forget that he, John Watson, is the man that knows Sherlock best, especially from behind. He knows how the man thinks, he knows how he talks, how he moves, how he would react in certain situations. 

“I just told Lestrade but he doesn't believe me, say’s it’s a waste of time. But it isn’t is it? He’s coming back isn’t he?”

“I don’t think he is,” John says, hoping with all of his heart that he doesn’t know Sherlock as well as knows he does. He’s not the brainy one of the duo, he’s supposed to be the emotional one, there’s a very large chance that his predictions will be incorrect. 

As Anderson excuses himself from the house, saying that he was late to a club meeting (about Sherlock, no doubt, a deerstalker is sticking out of his bag), John makes the big mistake of allowing himself to hope, to hope that the day when he can finally tell what he’s been wanting to tell the man for so, many fucking years. 

 

He’s right.

The next time Anderson calls him, it’s two weeks later, about a terrorist case in Paris, solved by “un homme en un trench bleu”, and he knows immediately that Sherlock has, true to his deductions, chickened out and ultimately decided to avoid London for now- and maybe even for the rest of his life. 

He walks over to the oak fireplace, stab marks still faintly visible on the mantelpiece. He looks towards the wall, with it’s crude smiley face and bullet holes, a constant reminder of the man he found, then lost, then thought he would find again. It’s funny how when Mycroft commanded his men to have the place swept of dangerous objects when Sherlock died, now he knew which was possibly because Sherlock, the bastard knew that he wouldn't want to live without him alive. The fucking asshole, ever familiar with John’s own reactions just as John was to Sherlock’s. 

He had slipped bottle of pills into the skull, and with some sort of blessing from god, it had escaped the sweep of the flat. There were twenty, at least 8 times the overdose, and it would knock him out in two minutes, kill him in thirty. That was what he was aiming for- with the door locked and Mrs Hudson out grocery shopping it was practically reassured that no one would find him before it was too late. So he closed his eyes, remembering his first dinner with Sherlock, and the chase, and him shooting the taxi driver, then snippets- the swimming pool; Moriarty's laughing face; yellow numerals; a woman punching his face; the last flash of Mary’s golden hair and a shadow standing on a pile of corpses, gun at Sherlock's head ,and laughing as if there was nothing funnier in the world than a British man in a trench coat with his hands in the air, and then all went dark.

(This isn’t the end of the story just saying no spoilers but yeah)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm looking for a beta if anyone's interested=)


End file.
